Most dictators are afraid of a particular group of people – students. In different ways the governments of Libya, Egypt or Iran and many others intimidate, harass, imprison and even execute students hoping they will shut their mouth up. Yet, amid all adversity and serious personal risk, some refuse to shut up.

Students in such countries have to hide behind a computer screen to spread their message. It isn’t foolproof and a few are persecuted anyway. Others have to support their words with guns.

But we are better off, aren’t we? We can freely speak our voice without such fears? Ok, not always. However, compared to these totalitarian regimes, our students do have much more freedom to evaluate and criticize society. Our government can’t even dream of sending its troops to University. So it has to find another way. And it did.

They hijacked our students. The recent spat at the Kunsill Studenti Universitarji (KSU) is a clear example. Studenti Demokratici Maltin (SDM) use bullying and a ridiculous electoral system to keep on electing exclusively themselves. Pro-government and extremely conservative, this group of student is doing exactly the opposite of the courageous dissidents in totalitarian regimes. That is, making sure other students’ voices are not heard.

However, this week something really interesting happened. As Pulse, SDM’s main adversary, decided to boycott the elections, an ad hoc movement of students was formed. Moviment Indipendenti (MI) is proposing three students whose credentials are other than being puppets of our stuck-in-a-rut system.

I invite anyone reading this blog to take a look at what these students are for: